Confidence trick (tv and movies)

=Fictional portrayals=

Movies and television

* "The Lady Eve" (1941) – directed by Preston Sturges; the main character, Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck), is a con artist.

1950s

* "Racket Squad" (1951–1953) – TV series in the style of Dragnet with all episodes focused on confidence crimes.
* "The Rainmaker" (1956) – directed by Joseph Anthony; the main character, Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), is a con artist.
* "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) — directed by Billy Wilder

1960s

* "The Music Man" (1962) — produced and directed by Morton DaCosta; the main character, Harold Hill (Robert Preston), is a con artist.
* "" (1966–73 TV series) – the IMF team's adventures usually take the form of an elaborate con game in which the villain is the mark. Series writer William Read Woodfield was a self-professed confidence enthusiast and had read David Maurer's books on the subject.
* "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967) — directed by Irvin Kershner; the main character, Mordecai Jones (George C. Scott), is a con artist.
* "The Producers" (1968) – written and directed by Mel Brooks; the main characters, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and Leopold Bloom (Gene Wilder), are con artists.

1970s

* "Midnight Cowboy" — directed by John Schlesinger; the main character, Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) is a small-time con artist.
* "Skin Game" (1971) – directed by Paul Bogart; the main characters, Quincy Drew (James Garner) and Jason O'Rourke (Louis Gossett Jr.), con people.
* "The Sting" (1973) – directed by George Roy Hill; two professional grifters, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) try to con a mob boss

1980s

* "The A-Team" (1983–1986, TV) — created by Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell; con tricks are performed mostly by team member Tempelton Peck (played by Dirk Benedict)
* "House of Games" (1987) – directed by David Mamet; features con artists as main characters
* "The Vanishing" (1988) – directed by George Sluizer; directed by Frank Oz the main character is a victim of a confidence trick; a remake was released in 1993
* "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988) – directed by Frank Oz; main characters, Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) and Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine), are con artists

1990s

* "The Grifters" (1990) – directed by Stephen Frears; the story of Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston), a con artist
* "Diggstown" (1992) – directed by Michael Ritchie; the main character, Gabriel Caine (James Woods), is a con man
* "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993) – directed by Fred Schepisi; the plot was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man
* "The Usual Suspects" (1995) – directed by Bryan Singer; one of the characters is a con man
* "Traveller" (1997) – Bokky (Bill Paxton) is a confidence man
* "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997) – directed by David Mamet; named after the confidence game "Spanish Prisoner"
* "The Pest (1997 film)" — Pestario 'Pest' Vargas (John Leguizamo) is a Latino con man
* "The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)" (1999) - directed by Anthony Minghella; Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is a con artist.
* "Ed, Edd, n Eddy" (1999) - three main characters spend their time scamming other kids to get money in order to buy jawbreakers

2000s

* "Boiler Room" (2000) – directed by Ben Younger. Giovanni Ribisi plays entry-level investment broker working in a boiler room operation as part of a microcap stock fraud, with Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel.
* "Nine Queens" ("Nueve Reinas") (2000) – directed by Fabián Bielinsky; tells the story of two con artists who meet by chance and decide to cooperate in a scam; remade as "Criminal" (2004)
* "The Prime Gig" (2000) – directed by Gregory Mosher; Pendelton "Penny" Wise (Vince Vaughn) is a con artist
* "Birthday Girl" (2001) – directed by Jez Butterworth; the main character, John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), is a victim of a scam based on the con
* "Heist" (2001) — directed by David Mamet; the plot is based on a confidence game
* "Heartbreakers" (2001) – directed by David Mirkin; Max (mother) and Page Conners (daughter) con women
* "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) (remake of the 1960 film by Lewis Milestone) and sequels "Ocean's Twelve" (2004) and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007) – directed by Steven Soderbergh; films about con artists and the con
* "The Score" (2001) — directed by Frank Oz; the main characters try to con one another
* "Catch Me If You Can" (2002) — directed by Steven Spielberg; story about a real-life con artist and impostor Frank Abagnale
* "Confidence" (2003) – directed by James Foley; a group of con artists attempt to rip off a corrupt bank president
* "Matchstick Men" (2003) – directed by Ridley Scott; the main characters are con artists
* "Shade" (2003) – directed by Damian Nieman; story about poker hustlers who try to con other players
* "Hustle" (2004 – present) — a BBC series about a team of con artists
* "Criminal" (2004) — directed by Gregory Jacobs; about a team of con artists
* "Lost" (2004), TV series, two characters, James "Sawyer" Ford and Anthony Cooper, are both con-artists.
* "Going Postal" (2004), a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, features the semi-ex confidence artist Moist Von Lipwig as the protagonist, as does its 2007 sequel, "Making Money".
* "A Con" (2005) — created by a con artist Skyler Stone, who reveals the secrets of his profession by performing confidence tricks, scams, and hoaxes
* "Revolver" (2005) — directed by Guy Ritchie; one of the main characters, Jake Green (Jason Statham), is a con artist, and the premise of the film is a con
* "Bluffmaster" (2005) — directed by Rohan Sippy; the main character, Roy, is a professional conman
* "Colour Me Kubrick" (2006) – directed by Brian W. Cook; based on a true story of Alan Conway, who posed as director Stanley Kubrick
* "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006) – directed by Paul McGuigan; main character, Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett) performs an elaborate con as a revenge
* "The Real Hustle" (2006 – present) — BBC series; actors playing a team of ex-grifters explain the secrets of the con to the public
* "Kurosagi" (2006) — Japanese drama that reflects on the art of different cons and swindling methods.Starring Yamashita Tomohisa
* "Viva Pinata" (2007) Features a character "The Bonboon" who is constantly pulling tricks on pinatas to get candy.
* "Believe" (2007) — directed by Loki Mulholland; a mockumentary about multi-level marketing
* "The Riches" (2007) — FX series about a nomadic, drifter family
* "Liar Game" (2007) — Japanese drama which is about a honest college student, receives 100 million yen (about $1,000,000) one day, along with a card saying that she has been chosen to participate in the "Liar Game". In order to win the game, she must trick other players.
* "" (2007) — film based on the TV series of the same name; the villains of the film are Internet scammers
* "Burn Notice" (2007 – present) — USA Network series; an ex covert operative works as a freelance spy, with his jobs often taking the form of a con

Notable confidence tricks in literature

Nineteenth century

* "The Confidence-Man" (1857) — novel by Herman Melville; the main character tests confidence of other people
* "Les Misérables" (1862) — novel by Victor Hugo; the Thénardiers, two of the primary villains, scam money from people
* "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884) — novel by Mark Twain; two characters, The Duke and the Dauphin are grifters
* "The Red-Headed League" (1891) — Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle, which involves a sort of confidence trick used to enable a bank robbery

Twentieth century

* Simon Templar (1928—1963), also known as "The Saint," a main character in Leslie Charteris' novels and stories who is often involved in scams and cons
* "The Twelve Chairs" (1928) and "The Little Golden Calf" (1931) – satirical novels by Ilf and Petrov; the main character, Ostap Bender, is a con man, who has carried out most of the tricks listed below, and "The Little Golden Calf" contains a fictional secret society of con men called Children of Lieutenant Schmidt
* "The Space Merchants" (1953) — sci-fi novel by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth is replete with con games practiced by corporations
* "" (1954) – Thomas Mann's unfinished novel about a German con man
* "The Stainless Steel Rat" (1961 – present) – series of sci-fi novels by Harry Harrison; the protagonist, James Bolivar diGriz ("Slippery Jim"), is a con man and uses abundant schemes and frauds
* Travis McGee (1964–1984), fictional character in John D. MacDonald's series of detective novels, frequently uses con games or has them tried against him
* "The Golden Egg" (1984) — psychological thriller novel by Tim Krabbé features a chemistry teacher who employs con for the purpose of kidnapping
* Repairman Jack (1984–present), fictional character in F. Paul Wilson's series of novels, often runs scams on other con artists.
* "If Tomorrow Comes" (1985) — novel by Sidney Sheldon, which has a con artist as the main character and is mostly based on trickery and deception
* "Hellblazer" (1988 – present) — ongoing horror comic book series; the main character, John Constantine, uses confidence scams, trickery and magick

Twenty-first century

* "The Brethren" (2000) — novel by John Grisham features a con run by three incarcerated judges
* "Matchstick Men" (2002) — novel by Eric Garcia; the main characters are con artists
* "American Gods" (2001) — novel by Neil Gaiman uses a two-man con as a major plot element
* "The Egyptologist" (2004) — In this Arthur Phillips novel, Ralph Trilipush is a brilliant con who eventually cons himself.
* "Going Postal" (2004) — Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel features a convicted and condemned con artist Moist von Lipwig, who applies the principles of the con in his new job as Postmaster General
* "The Lies of Locke Lamora" (2006) — fantasy novel by Scott Lynch follows the adventures of a group of con artists known as the Gentlemen Bastards
* Many of the crime novels by Jim Thompson involve confidence artists

ee also

Confidence trick